Chris Elsberry: Auriemma says it's time for UConn fans to embrace football

Updated 11:00 pm, Saturday, April 19, 2014

Connecticut men's basketball player DeAndre Daniels, right, hugs Connecticut women's head coach Geno Auriemma after Auriemma arrived on campus with his team for a rally celebrating their NCAA title on Wednesday, April 9, 2014, in Storrs, Conn.
Photo: Jessica Hill, AP

STORRS -- They were making their way down Storrs Road, better known as Route 195, when the car turned right onto North Eagleville Road and Geno Auriemma switched from nine-time NCAA champion women's basketball coach and became Geno Auriemma ...tour guide.

Athletic Director Warde Manuel was in the passenger's seat (or Manuel might have been driving, Auriemma wasn't too clear on the details), but as the car made its way to the starting point for the "Victory Lap" around campus, Auriemma couldn't help but point out the changes.

"I said, `Warde, you would not believe what this place was like in 1985 when I got here,'" Auriemma said. "I'm telling you, I drove around every day saying, `Who in God's name would want to come to school here if they had choices?'"

And in the almost 30 years since Auriemma arrived at UConn, the school itself has undergone an incredible transformation into becoming one of the Top 20 public universities in the country -- and having one of the greatest athletic programs around.

"It's been unbelievable," Auriemma said. "It's been ... just mind-blowing what's happened here, especially in the last 20 years when you think about where we started and where all the programs are now. I talk about this a lot. We do more with less than a lot of big schools and big conferences that do less with more. And that's a tribute to the people that are here. That, when you get here, it gets into you. And you get caught up in it. There isn't one day where you come to work here and not realize that you're among some special people."

And one of those "special people" is now new head football coach Bob Diaco. On April 9, Diaco brought the entire team to the women's basketball welcome home program at the Fairfield Way to be a part of the celebration, something Auriemma immediately picked up on.

"How about those guys, huh?" Auriemma said. "You knew that they were going to be here. That's kind of how he is and it's kind of the spirit that he's trying to instill in his guys that we're all a part of this."

And Auriemma feels that it's time for Husky Nation to make football a true part of the UConn family.

"I think sometimes football gets pushed to the background because basketball has been so successful here for so many years," Auriemma said. "But, you talk about the last 20 years, what basketball's done here, think about where football was. From Memorial Stadium, playing URI and Maine to playing in front of 103, 000 at Michigan? That's change."

Although football has only been part of the Division I scene at UConn since 2002, the results -- these last three seasons notwithstanding -- have been nothing short of surprising with six winning seasons and five bowl appearances, including the 2010 BCS Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma.

And while the program, has stumbled of late, Auriemma gets goosebumps thinking about what might happen if success returns -- and this time, stays.

"If that ever gets to its potential, I mean, forget it. I can't even imagine what that would be like," he said. "And I think it's time for our fans to kind of really embrace that. I don't know if they realize this but when I got here, obviously, our fans didn't embrace women's basketball, we had to win to prove it. I get it.

"But our men's basketball program was selling a lot of tickets for a team that was just OK. That Field House or the old Hartford Civic Center at the time, there were a lot of people going to those games for a team that was just OK. And everybody around the country saw that and went, `Wow, that fan base is unbelievable for a team that's just OK. What's it going to be like when they get good?'

"And then all of a sudden we got good and look what happened. The men won the NIT and it just blew up. Well, I think it's a two-way street. I don't think you can sit at home and go, `Well, if they go 9-2, I'll go watch them play.' I think we have to show the rest of the country that we have a great fan base and then when we get to be really good, it's going to blow up. But it can't be, `Let's wait until we're really good and then we'll blow it up,' it can't happen like that. That's not how it happened for basketball and I think we should embrace the football program just like we did basketball 20-some years ago."